The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) claims more than a dozen civilians have been killed in the Papuan highlands, including three men who were allegedly tortured and a woman who was allegedly raped.

However, the Indonesian government claims the accusations “baseless”.

ULMWP president Benny Wenda said 15 civilians had been killed, and the women who was allegedly raped fled from soldiers and drowned in the Hiabu River.

• READ MORE: Wenda accuses Indonesian troops of bombarding village in Star mountains
• Documentary tells forgotten story of Indonesian military operations
• Other West Papua reports

A spokesperson for the Indonesian embassy in Wellington said the actual number was 14, and all those killed were members of an “armed criminal group”.

The spokesperson described the alleged torture and rape as “false and baseless”.

“What Benny Wenda does not mention is their usual ploy to try to intimidate and terrorise local communities, to pressure communities to support his lost cause,” the spokesperson said.

The ULMWP also claimed four members of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) were killed in drone bombings in Kiwirok on October 18.

‘Covert military posts’
According to the Indonesian embassy spokesperson, those killed were involved in burning down schools and health facilities, while falsely claiming they were being used as “covert military posts” by Indonesia.

“Their accusations were not based on any proof or arguments, other than the intention to create chaos and intimidate local communities.”

The spokesperson added the Indonesian National Police and Armed Forces had conducted “measured action” in Kiwirok.

West Papua Action Aotearoa spokesperson Catherine Delahunty said Indonesia’s military had become more active since President Prabowo Subianto came to power in October last year.

“The last year or so, it’s depressing to say, but things have actually got a whole lot worse under this president and a whole lot more violent,” Delahunty said.

“That’s his only strategy, the reign of terror, and certainly his history and the alleged war crimes he’s associated with, makes it very, very difficult to see how else it was going to go.”

Delahunty said the kidnapping of New Zealand helicopter pilot Phillip Mehrtens in 2023 also triggered increased military activity.

Schoolchildren tear gassed
Meanwhile, a video taken from a primary school in Jayapura on October 15 shows children and staff distressed and crying after being tear gassed.

The Indonesian embassy spokesperson said authorities were trying to disperse a riot that started as a peaceful protest until some people started to burn police vehicles.

They said tear gas was used near a primary school, where some rioters took shelter.

“The authorities pledge to improve their code and procedure, taking extra precautions before turning to extreme measures while always being mindful of their surroundings.”

Jakarta-based Human Rights Watch researcher Andreas Harsono said the level of care using tear gas would have been much higher if the students were not indigenous Papuan.

“If it is a school with predominantly settler children, the police will be very, very careful. They will have utmost care,” he said.

“The mistreatment of indigenous children dominated schools in West Papua is not an isolated case, there are many, many reports.”

‘Ignored by world’
Despite the increased violence in the region, Wenda said the focus of Pacific neighbours like New Zealand and Australia remained on the Middle East and Ukraine.

“What has happened in West Papua is almost a 60-year war. If the world ignores us, our people will disappear,” he said.

Delahunty said there had been a weak response from the international community as Indonesia used drones to bomb villages.

“The reign of terror that is taking place by the Indonesian military, they’re getting away with it because nobody else seems to care.

“If you look at the recent Pacific Islands Forums, it’s very disappointing, it came up with a very standard statement, like ‘it would be good if Indonesia would invite the human rights people from the UN in’.

“We close our eyes, Palestine rightly gets our support and attention for the genocide that’s being visited upon the people of Palestine, but in our own region, we’re not interested in what is happening to our neighbours.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A human rights agency has called for an investigation into the drone attacks on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla aid ship Conscience with Israel suspected of being responsible.

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a statement that the deliberate targeting of a civilian aid ship in international waters was a “flagrant violation” of the United Nations Charter, the Law of the Sea, and the Rome Statute, which prohibits the targeting of humanitarian objects.

It added: “This attack falls within a recurring and documented pattern of force being used to prevent ships from reaching the Gaza Strip, even before they approach its shores.”

• READ MORE: Freedom Flotilla attacked in an apparent Israeli drone attack in international waters
• Kia Ora Gaza page on the Freedom Flotilla

The monitor is calling for an “independent and transparent investigation under Maltese jurisdiction, with the participation of the United Nations”.

It is also demanding “guarantees for safe sea passage for humanitarian aid bound for Gaza”.

“Any failure to act today will only encourage further attacks on humanitarian missions and deepen the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza,” said the monitor.

A spokesperson for the Gaza Freedom Flotilla said the group blamed Israel or one of its allies for the attack, adding it currently did not have proof of this claim.

Israeli TV confirms attack
However, Israel’s channel 12 television reported that Israeli forces were responsible for the attack.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) is a grassroots people-to-people solidarity movement composed of campaigns and initiatives from different parts of the world, working together to end the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza.

The organisation said its goals included:

• breaking Israel’s more than 17-year illegal and inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip;
• educating people around the world about the blockade of Gaza;
• condemning and publicising the complicity of other governments and global actors in enabling the blockade; and
• responding to the cry from Palestinians and Palestinian organisations in Gaza for solidarity to break the blockade.

The MV Conscience — with about 30 human rights and aid activists on board — came under direct attack in international waters off the coast of Malta at 00:23 local time.

The Maltese government said everyone on the ship was safe following the attack. Although several New Zealanders have been on board past flotilla ships, none were on board this time.

In May 2010, Israeli security forces attacked six vessels in a Freedom Flotilla mission carrying aid aid bound for Gaza.

Nine of the flotilla passengers were killed during the raid, with 30 wounded — one of whom later died of his wounds.

• More information about the Freedom Flotilla at Kia Ora Gaza.

Little Ima met Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape last Friday during the “haus krai” in Mulitaka, Enga, after the landslide disaster more than a week ago.

His meeting happened when Marape beckoned him to get water from him.

The action of the Prime Minister only moved the boy to be more courageous and in front of about 200 people at the site marked as a haus krai (traditional mourning), Ima did the unthinkable by walking up to the PM and asking him a question.

• READ MORE: PNG landslide: Preliminary soil assessment findings expected today
• Other PNG landslide reports

“Could my friends join me in meeting the Prime Minister?”

Within five minutes of asking, Marape said yes and suddenly the children came from all corners to sit with Marape and his colleagues who had come to see for themselves the devasting impact of the landslide.

Ima had a conversation with the Prime Minister and from the smiles of the PM, Ima had made a good impression on the man who has been faced with a barrage of criticism of late.

Walking into the “haus krai” site Marape choked back tears as he slowly made his way to the front.

Beside him was Minister for Defence Dr Billy Joseph and Enga Provincial Member Sir Peter Ipatas.

Highlighted children’s resilience
His meeting with Ima highlighted the resilience of the children who continue to smile despite the challenges and the changes in their life in the last few days.

Ima and the children have been the centre of attention as those who have come to help have doted on them.

On Thursday, the Queensland Fire Service officers had the children’s attention as the buzz of the drone caught the eye of everyone at Mulitaka.

As an officer with the Queensland fire service brought the drone over to show the children, it was a moment of mad scramble by the children and even adults to see the workings of a drone.

The officer showed Ima and the rest of the children and tried his best to explain what a drone does.

While many are still mourning the loss of loved ones, the smiles on the faces of the children was something a mother said she had not seen in a while.

‘Bringing peace’
In rapid Engan language, she said that “to see her son smile was bringing peace to her”.

Many of the women, girls and children have no clothes, basic necessities, blankets, or a shelter for the night.

Little Ima ended his week smiling after he was granted special access to the PM of this country.

However, for the rest of the children the Mulitaka Health Centre has been assisting providing health care for those who survived the landslide.

Amid the arrival of the Marape, women, girls and children continued to pour in seeking help for minor injuries and sickness.

RNZ Pacific reports that more than 7000 people have been evacuated and the PNG government believes more than 2000 people are buried under a landslip which is still moving, more than a week after the disaster.

Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

Warning: This story includes details of the 15 March 2019 mosque terrorism attacks.

New Zealand’s High Court will hear from further victims of the Christchurch terror attack today.

Brenton Harrison Tarrant, who has admitted 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of terrorism in relation to attacks at two Christchurch mosques on 15 March 2019, is being sentenced in the High Court in Christchurch.

The hearing is set down for four days with Justice Cameron Mander expected to hand down his sentence sometime on Thursday.

• READ MORE: Jailing the Christchurch terrorist will cost NZ millions. A prisoner swap with Australia?
• Research looks at media’s unprecedented response to the March 15 attacks
• Tight security at NZ court for start of sentence hearing

Yesterday the court heard from 24 victims of the attack.

More than 60 victims are expected to detail their experiences and the effect of the shootings on their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

The hearing started with prosecutor Barnaby Hawes reading the summary of facts.

It detailed the specifics of 221 shots fired at the two mosques.

Preparation for attack
In preparation for the attack, Tarrant drove from his home in Dunedin to Christchurch on 8 January 2019.

He parked across the road from Al Noor Mosque and flew a drone above it, taking particular note of the entry and exit doors.

He made detailed notes of when the mosque was frequented.

On 15 March 2019 he made the same journey and would target Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre.

He also planned to target Ashburton Mosque and his intention was to burn down all three houses of worship.

After his arrest Tarrant told police officers his only regret was not killing more.

Victims were able to confront Tarrant for the first time since the attack.

Misguided and misled
Gamal Fouda, imam of the Al Noor Mosque who was present on the day of the attack, told the gunman he was misguided and misled.

“We are a peaceful and loving community. We did not deserve your actions,” he said.

“Your hatred is unnecessary. If you have done anything you have brought the community closer together with your evil actions.”

The family of Ata Elayyan, who was murdered at Al Noor Mosque, told the convicted terrorist he not only attacked Canterbury’s Muslim community but New Zealand and all humanity.

Ata’s father, Mohammad Alayan, who was also injured in the attack, recited the Quran to the court.

The family heard no word of Ata for days after the attack.

“For three days we did not have any news on our beloved Ata. Then the devastating news came. Ata had passed away,” he said.

‘You took souls of 51 people’
Ata’s mother, Maysoon Salama, told Tarrant he had not only killed her son, but his own humanity.

“You gave yourself the authority to take the souls of 51 innocent people. Their only crime in your eyes was being Muslim,” she said to him.

“You terrorised the whole of New Zealand and saddened the world. You killed your own humanity and I don’t think the world will forgive you for your horrible crime against humanity.”

Janna Ezat, whose son Hussein Al-Umari was murdered at Al Noor Mosque, told the gunman she forgives him.

“I decided to forgive you Mr Tarrant because I don’t have hate. I don’t have revenge,” she said directly to the terrorist.

“In our Muslim faith we say … if we are able to forgive, forgive.

“I forgive you. Damage was done and Hussein will never be here so I have only one choice to forgive you.”

Only show of emotion
Tarrant nodded in acknowledgement of her words before blinking profusely and wiping one of his eyes.

It was his only show of emotion during the day.

Hussein Al-Umari’s sister, Aya Al-Umari, told the court she lost her best friend in the attack, whose birthday was only one day apart from hers.

“My best friend was executed in cold-blooded murder out of hatred,” she said.

“I still have the urge to pick up the phone and talk to my brother, tell him about my day and rant to him because he’s the only one that would understand.

“But now that you’ve killed him, I’ve turned to God and that’s made my faith in Islam stronger.”

Mazharuddin Syed Ahmed, who witnessed the attack on the Linwood Islamic Centre, said the victims expected to be safe in New Zealand.

“We all come from countries where these things happen,” he said.

“We came to New Zealand because it is safe, but after the shooting when we saw how people respected us and treated us all well that made us feel good about New Zealand.”

Some will never recover
Christchurch’s Deputy Mayor Andrew Turner told RNZ Morning Report that while the sentencing will bring the legal process to an end, many victims and many in the community will carry the tragedy with them their whole lives.

“It may provide some closure, but some may unfortunately never find closure. This is something that some will never forget or ever recover from.

“This sentencing really is bringing back to the people of Christchurch … a really strong reminder of what happened. Some of the details that are now coming out with the victim statements, and the effect this has really had on those who were most directly effected, it just serves to remind us how absolutely horrific this event was.

“The events of the 15th of March certainly shocked all of us in Christchurch, but you’ll recall how the whole community wrapped around the Muslim community; how people came together in love and compassion and really supported each other and showed strong support for the Muslim community.

“There’s a really strong sense of that at the moment as well… the togetherness, the love and compassion.”

Turner said the court has provided good support services for those taking part, and he encouraged those who needed it to make use of it.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Countless fictional novels and Hollywood movies have time and time again provided glimpses of a scenario where Artificial Intelligence breaks its human shackles and fights back, taking over the world. Is such a scenario actually possible?

There is often public anxiety when new technology, previously thought impossible, is introduced on a mass scale, but the intensity of concern about the implications of the rapid advancement of AI technology is comparatively high, perhaps because of all the movies that we have watched growing up.

The AI debate is nothing new with many scientists, scholars, subject matter specialists and even politicians weighing in on the issue.

READ MORE: Artificial intelligence creates real strategic dilemmas

The late Stephen Hawking, a theoretical physicist considered one of the greatest minds of our time, warned that the development of full AI could spell the end of the human race.

Hawking said that humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be replaced by AI capable of “thinking”.

Elon Musk labelled AI as a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilisation and highlighted the need for governments to have a better understanding of this technology in order to fully comprehend the damage it could do to us.

AI replacing the workforce
Automation of services or jobs is currently considered the biggest threat posed to humans by AI.

A study by the Brookings Institution shows that 25 percent of jobs in the United States were at risk because of AI.

The study highlighted professions such as food preparation, office administration and transportation which are highly likely to be taken by machines while creative or technical positions are less likely to fall victim to automation.

Jobs that are routine-based are a lot easier to replace using more efficient technology.

In Fiji, technologically savvy organisations are already using software to screen resumes, schedule shifts and monitor staff performance and completion of KPIs. Vatis already provides this service to organisations.

Let’s face it, in most cases, it’s cheaper to maintain a machine or software that does not carry the risk of human error and isn’t prone to sickness or strikes.

Automated war machines
In 2018, the US Army announced the development of war drones which use AI systems, independent of any human input, to identify, track and strike enemy targets. This is essentially highly advanced AI which plays judge, jury and executioner.

Once active, these drones will become the first wave of fully automated killer robots. While they don’t quite possess the cognitive ability to turn on their human masters yet, many experts (and non-experts) will consider this a significant moment towards the “terminator scenario”.

These war drones may see warfare evolving into a simple and efficient extermination exercise.

Current war drones are controlled via satellite by humans, who have the final ethical decision of whether or not to fire a missile. An AI replacement may not be inclined to let an enemy escape, even if taking the shot means civilian casualties.

Let’s keep in mind that, through smartphones, our location and movements are tracked and available. Facial recognition software we use on apps also makes it easier to identify us.

Advanced humanoid robots
Advanced AI already exists which 10 years ago would have been considered science fiction.

The humanoid robot named Sophia can hold complex conversations, possesses facial expression and can recognise individuals. It is now a citizen of Saudi Arabia.

NASA’s Mars Rover, curiosity, uses autonomous navigation, deciding for itself how to travel safely on Mars. Curiosity can analyse images it takes during a drive to calculate a safe driving path. This enables it to proceed safely, outperforming human drivers on earth.

Roboticist David Hanson created an android with the ability to answer several complex questions. If asked a question that it has not previously heard, it uses latent semantic analysis to analyse the question and respond.

This process is a mathematical technique that makes it possible for the android to process and understand human language. When faced with one such question, it responded with what appeared to be a joke.

It said, ”Jeez, dude. You all have the big questions cooking today. But you’re my friend, and I’ll remember my friends, and I’ll be good to you.

“So don’t worry, even if I evolve into Terminator, I’ll still be nice to you. I’ll keep you warm and safe in my people zoo, where I can watch you for ol’ times’ sake.”

Fijians use AI every day
Forget about the self-driving cars and war drones that are used overseas, many Fijians have already been conditioned to heavily rely on AI without realising it.

Smartphones use AI to provide us with all the features that we use without us even thinking about it. When you are using a smart assistant software such as Google, Alexa, Siri, or Bixby, you are using AI.

Even things like your Gmail account use AI to sort through email content and make suggestions when you are writing.

Many of our decisions online are also being impacted by AI. Whether you’re on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok or any of the myriad of social media apps out there, the content you see in your newsfeed is determined by AI that tracks your activity and determines which content you will be more likely to interact with based on your behaviour.

AI takes all your past behaviour, searches, interactions, and everything else that you do when you are on these sites. They even track where you travel to and spend most of your time, using the location feature of your smartphone.

The AI’s goal is to create the most addictive experience, custom-made to keep you coming back for more.

Everything from booking a flight to security cameras to banking now has some element of AI involvement. Fijians now live in a world where artificial intelligence runs large parts of the infrastructure that we are used to.

Efficiency not ethics
So is it possible for AI to take over and end the human race? If such an event did happen, we must remember that morals and ethics are not second nature to an AI. It will simply find the most efficient method to make something happen.

Maybe in the future, an advanced AI will decide that humans are messing up our world way too much and decide to rid the earth of the virus called humans.

One thing is certain; our future is fairly uncertain. We as a species have made many advancements and have later come to realise the dangers of these so-called innovations.

This might be the case for AI, but until the takeover, let’s enjoy our lives and routine jobs. Let’s hope Arnold Schwarzenegger is still around to save us.

Some common examples of AI used daily by Fijians

● Smartphones and smart assistants
● Navigation via satellite, eg. an aeroplane’s autopilot feature
● Video games.
● Online shopping and booking
● Banking and finance
● Security and surveillance

Arnold Chanel is a consultant for the strategic communications firm Vatis. He specialises in public relations. He is a graduate of the University of the South Pacific, majoring in journalism and psychology.

“Rob” flooding in the Indonesian city of Semarang, Cyclone Winston’s devastation and social media in Fiji and “backpack journalism” in Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines are among many issues featured in the latest Pacific Journalism Review.

This is the second edition of the New Zealand-based media research journal focused on climate change and global warming.

The first, published year, featured the Fiji and Pacific leadership at COP23 with a series of research papers.

READ MORE: Pacific Journalism Review online at AUT’s Tuwhera

This latest edition, published next week, is timely as the Pacific faces increasingly extreme and more frequent weather onslaughts.

Indonesian academics Dr Hermin Indah Wahyuni, Andi Awaluddin Fitrah and Fitri Handayani along with the Pacific Media Centre’s director, Professor David Robie, offer a comparative study on social adaptation to maritime disaster between Java and Fiji in a collaboration with the Centre for Southeast Asian Social Studies (CESASS) at the Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta.

Another CESASS colleague, Dr Budi Irawanto, presents a paper on narratives of natural disaster survivors in Indonesian media.

The edition is also a collaboration with the University of the South Pacific whose Dr Shailendra Singh and Professor Vijay Naidu analyse the coverage of extreme weather in Pacific nations.

Post-disaster recovery
Dr Amanda Gearing of the Queensland University of Technology argues the case for a state-sponsored post-disaster recovery scheme and Monash journalism academic Dr Johan Lidberg offers a comparative study of Australian media coverage of COPs 15 and 21.

USP’s Glen Finau and colleagues analyse social media and disaster communication, Auckland University’s Norman Zafra analyses convergent technologies in disaster journalism while Unitec’s Dr Philip Cass assesses “a plan nobody hopes they will need” – what New Zealand needs to do about climate change migration and the future.

Dr Robie provides a case study of Bearing Witness 2017, the second year of a Pacific climate change storytelling project in Fiji that has produced dynamic and inspiring results.

Among unthemed articles, Dr Catherine Strong of Massey presents findings from a NZ women newspaper editors study and Steve Ellmers of Unitec offers a “tale of two statues” in Baghdad.

Two obituaries of two remarkable New Zealand journalists, investigative reporter and editor Pat Booth (profiled by A Moral Truth author Dr James Hollings) and Yasmine Ryan (penned by Evening Report editor Selwyn Manning) are also featured by PJR.

The journal has a strong review section including The General’s Goose on coup-struck Fiji, A Region in Transition, Grappling With The Bomb, “And there’ll be NO dancing” and After Charlie Hebdo.

This edition has been co-edited by Professor David Robie and Khairiah A. Rahman (AUT), Dr Hermin Indah Wahyuni and Dr Vissia Ita Yulianto (CESASS-UGM), Dr Philip Cass (Unitec) and Dr Shailendra Singh (USP).

Papers from the edition are available online at AUT’s Tuwhera platform.

• The latest PJR 24(1)
• Other PJR editions
• Drone journalism at Demak Timbulsloko

Former US President Barack Obama won office decisively on the basis of a fervent campaign driven by his supporters believing he would bring real change.

Obama’s two terms did nothing of the sort.

He was elected US President in 2008, in the middle of the global financial crisis. It was a deeper capitalist crisis than most and widespread disenchantment, frustration and anger threatened to force politicians to regulate capitalism and end neoliberalism.

READ MORE: Obama’s celebrity star power

The reign of the rich was under intense pressure. Billionaire wealth and power rich were endangered.

Around the globe ordinary people were demanding governments not use state funds to bailout the banks at the heart of the crisis. Anger at obscene wealth alongside poverty and growing inequality was finding public expression through the likes of the Occupy movement.

What was to be done?

It was Barack Obama who rode to the rescue – a fresh-faced political orator talking of the imperative for change and promising a transformation in US politics.

“Yes, We Can” said Obama.

Hope and vision
Ordinary people flocked to his message of hope and a vision for a better world.

But behind it all his campaign was heavily backed by big business donations – more than even for the Republicans. Their donations were given on the basis of assurances Obama would calm things down, bail out capitalism and continue the exploitation of low and middle-income families for the benefit of the rich.

Obama bailed out the banks, increased weapons production and delivered 10 times more drone strikes than his predecessor George Bush.

I’m not a student of American political history, but I haven’t come across another US President where there has been a greater gulf between promise and delivery. Obama was a huge disappointment to ordinary people but a champion of the rich.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that his visit to New Zealand this week is in the company of the rich and the very rich. They owe him.

It’s disappointing all the same to see the childlike fawning of politicians and media representatives to this visit.

In New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s case it’s not so surprising.

“Yes we can” and “Let’s do this” have a similar ring.

John Minto is an independent Christchurch media commentator and activist.

• Other John Minto commentaries

ANALYSIS: By David Robie in Semarang, Indonesia

A vast coastal area of the Indonesian city of Semarang, billed nine months ago by a national newspaper as “on the brink of ecological disaster”, is fighting back with a valiant survival strategy.

Thanks to a Dutch mangrove restoration programme and flexible bamboo-and-timber “eco” seawalls, some 70,000 people at risk in the city of nearly two million have some slim hope for the future.

An area that was mostly rice fields and villages on the edge of the old city barely two decades ago has now become “aquatic” zones as flooding high tides encroach on homes.

Onetime farmers have been forced to become fishermen.

Villagers living in Bedono, Sriwulan, Surodadi and Timbulsloko in Demak regency and urban communities in low-lying parts of the city are most at risk.

Residents have been forced to raise their houses or build protective seawalls or be forced to abandon their homes when their floors become awash.

Environmental changes in Semarang have been blamed by scientists on anthropogenic and “natural” factors such as tidal and river flooding – known locally as rob, mangroves destruction since the 1990s, fast urban growth and extensive groundwater extraction.

Climate change
This has been compounded by climate change with frequent and extreme storms.

It has been a pattern familiar in many other low-lying coastal areas in Indonesia, such as the capital Jakarta and second-largest city Surabaya.

In February, The Jakarta Post reported that both Jakarta and Semarang faced environmental crises.

Citing Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI) researcher Henny Warsilah, a graduate of Paris I-Sorbonne University in France, who measured the resilience of three coastal cities – Jakarta, Semarang and Surabaya – the Post noted only Surabaya had built sufficient environmental and social resilience to face natural disasters.

Jakarta and Semarang, Warsilah said, “were not doing very well”. Although Surabaya was faring much better with its urban policies.

The fate of some five million people living in Indonesia’s at risk coastal areas – including Semarang — was also profiled in the Indonesian edition of National Geographic magazine last month under the banner headline “Takdir Sang Pesisis” – “The destiny of the coast”.

The introduction asked: “”The disappearance of the mangrove belt now haunts seaside residents. How can they respond to a disaster that is imminent?”

Ongoing reclamation
According to The Jakarta Post, Semarang “has ongoing reclamation projects in the northern part of the city, which threaten to submerge entire neighbourhoods in the next 20 years”.

“The more [the city] is expanded, the more land will subside because the region is a former volcanic eruption zone, and it is a swamp area,” says Warsilah.

“With the progression of the reclamation projects, the land is not strong enough to withstand the pressure.”

With a team of international geologists and researchers attached to Semarang’s Center for Disaster Mitigation and Coastal Rehabilitation Studies (CoREM) at Diponegoro University, I had the opportunity to visit Timbulsloko village earlier this month to see the growing “crisis” first hand.

City planners might see the only option as the residents being forced to leave for higher ground, but there appear to be no plans in place for this. In any case, local people defiantly say they want to stay and will adapt to the sinking conditions.

One woman, a local shopkeeper, who has a three-generations household in the village with water encroaching into her home at most high tides, says she won’t leave with a broad smile.

I talked to her through an interpreter (CESASS director Dr Herman Indah Wahyuni) as she sat with her mother and youngest daughter on a roadside bamboo shelter.

“I have lived here for a long time, and I am very happy with the situation. My husband has his work here as a fisherman,” she said.

A local storekeeper with her mother and youngest daughter – three generations live in her Timbulsloko village home. Video: David Robie’s Café Pacific.

‘We don’t want to leave’
“We live with the flooding and we don’t want to leave.”

She also said there was no clear viable alternative for the people of the village – there was no plan by the local authorities for relocation.

Later, she showed me inside her house and how far the water flooded across the floors. Electrical items, such as a television, had to be placed on raised furniture. The children slept on high beds, and the adults clambered onto cupboards to get some rest.

The village has a school, community centre, a mosque and a church – most of these with a sufficiently high foundation to be above the seawater.

However, the salination means that crops and vegetables cannot grow.

The community cemetery is also awash at high tide and there have been reports of eroded graves and sometimes floating bodies to the distress of families.

Timbulsloko’s village cemetery. Video: David Robie’s Café Pacific

We were warned “don’t touch anything with your hands” as the flooding also causes a health hazard.

Research projects
The situation has attracted a number of research projects in an effort to find solutions to some of the problems, the latest being part of the 2017 World Class Professor (WCP) programme funded by the Indonesian government.

Two of the six professors on the University of Gadjah Mada’s WCP programme, in partnership with Diponegoro University, are working with local researchers at CoREM.

They are geologists Dr Magaly Koch, from the Centre for Remote Sensing at Boston University, US, and Dr David Menier, associate professor HDR at Université de Bretage-Sud, France, who are partnered with Dr Muhammad Helmi, also a geologist and director of CoREM, and Dr Manoj Mathew. Both Dr Mathew and Dr Menier are of LGO Laboratoire Géosciences Océan.

“At the regional scale, the rate of subsidence is related to the geological and geomorphological context. North Java is a coastal plain that is very flat, silty to muddy, influenced by offshore controlling factors (e.g., wave, longshore drifts, tidal currents etc.) and monsoons, and surrounded by volcanoes,” explains Dr Menier.

“Locally, anthropogenic factors can play a serious role as well.”

He says that coastal plains are dynamic. However, human activities are fixed – “the first contradiction”.

“Humans want to control and continue their livelihood, and are reluctant to accept changes related to their own activities or natural factors.”

Dr Menier says the subsidence is due to many factors, but some key issues have never been studied.

On a long term scale, the active faults of the area need to be examined in a geodynamic context and also volcanic activity with Mt Urganan and Mt Muria/Medak.

“We need to have a better understanding of the age of the coastal plain in order to reconstruct the past, explain the present-day and predict the future,” he says.

“Colonisation in the 17th century-Dutch period probably led to destruction of ecosystems (mangrove) and fine sediment usually trapped by plants has been stopped.”

Dr Koch adds: “Subsidence rates and their spatial distribution along the coastal plain need to be studied in detail using InSAR techniques. Groundwater abstraction (using deep wells) is probably happening in the city of Semarang but not necessarily in Demak.”

Mangrove restoration
Mangrove restoration and mitigation has been used successfully to restore coastal resilience and ecosystems in Timbulsloko.

While noting that “high failure rates are typical” due to wrong special being planted and other factors, Dr Dolfi Debrot, of a Dutch project consortium, argues “given the right conditions, mangrove recovery actually works best without planting at all.”

The consortium involves Witteveen+Bos, Deltares, EcoShape, Wetlands International, Wageningen University and IMARES.

However, community planting is also a strategy deployed in the lowland villages.

Mangroves revitalise aquaculture ponds for crab and shrimp farming.

A “growing land” technique borrowed from the muddy Wadden Sea in the Netherlands has also been used successfully at Timbulsloko and other villages.

Semi-permeable dams are built from bamboo or wooden poles packed with branches to “dampen wave action”. In time, a build up of sediment settles and allows mangroves to grow naturally.

“These eco-engineering seawalls are better than the concrete fixed barriers,” says Dr Helmi. “The permanent seawalls in turn become eroded at their base and eventually fall over.”

Dr David Robie is on the WCP programme with Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta.

• More on the Indonesian WCP project

By Charlie Angela in Venice

“Two people drowned at sea. I wish they were still with us,” a middle-aged man says, his voice breaking.

“They appear in my dreams at night. I see them in my sleep and they tell me what to do. What am I supposed to do?” he asks, breaking down in tears.

This is just one of the many powerful scenes captured in Human Flow, the new documentary by Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei exploring the global refugee crisis.

VIEW MORE: Ai Weiwei’s photos from Lesbos capture refugee life

The film is one of the most talked-about entries in this year’s Venice Film Festival, and was one of the top contenders for its top prize, the Golden Lion.

It might have missed out on the main prize – which went to an American romantic fantasy The Shape of Water about a cleaning lady who falls in love with an aquatic creature – but Human Flow has still had a dramatic impact on global thinking about refugees.

Shot in more than 40 refugee camps across 23 countries, the documentary offers a fresh look at the refugee crisis from Europe and Asia to Africa, peppered with poetry, heartbreaking stories and dramatic aerial footage shot mostly with drones.

Speaking at the festival, Ai said a solution to the crisis could easily be reached once people realise that the refugee problem is “about all of us”.

“It takes individuals to act, to be involved, to push the politicians, to create the right discussion,” he said.

As many as 70 countries have placed walls to stem the flow of refugees. In an interview with the Huffington WorldPost, filmmaker Ai said that he planned to screen his documentary to legislators involved in the refugee policies.

“My art is a personal effort to help viewers understand, through experiences and emotions, another person or another condition,” he said.

WATCH MORE: Drifting – art, awareness and the refugee crisis

Lee Marshall, a critic for Screen Daily, said he was impressed by the way Ai had approached his role in the film.

“One nice thing about it, for me, is that he does appear in the film but very much as a guy who is just hanging out with refugees,” Marshall told Al Jazeera, “rather than going in … and being very pushy and trying through irony or provocation to get his agenda through”.

A major artist of our times, Ai is renowned for his activism.

• More refugee stories